


and we will walk away come morning

by xylodemon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional Infidelity, F/M, First Time, Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 19:04:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xylodemon/pseuds/xylodemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows he shouldn't kiss her, knows it with an ache in his chest that needles and hums like an accusation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and we will walk away come morning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lit_chick08](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lit_chick08/gifts).



> Written for [Your Cheatin' Heart - a love affair ficathon](http://workswithwords.livejournal.com/272324.html).

It rains again three nights after Ron leaves, fiercely, the water hitting the roof of their tent with the heavy, constant plod of footsteps, and it makes Harry feel small and hollow and confused. It has always been the three of them, except for that one handful of weeks in their fourth year, and Harry's anger simmers into loss, a faint itch between his teeth, a bitter taste on the back of his tongue. He stares at the flapping tent wall until a dull ache settles behind his eyes, then frowns at the jar of bluebell flames on the table, remembering the first time Hermione conjured them, how she once used them to set fire to Snape's robes. Years ago, that Quidditch match was. A lifetime ago. Before Cedric and Sirius and Dumbledore, before he'd even know Voldemort was still alive.

"He didn't mean it," Hermione says, her voice brittle, curled up at the edges like burnt parchment. It's the first thing she has said all day; Harry wonders if she's trying to convince him or if she's trying to convince herself. "He wasn't in his right mind. He hadn't been sleeping, and -- we'll figure something out."

"Yeah." Harry looks away, rubbing the back of his neck, exhausted in a way he can feel in his bones. Last night he'd laid awake in his bunk, listening to Hermione cry until birds twittered in the trees ringing their camp, afraid to close his eyes because he'd only see Ron's accusing face.

The wind shrieks and howls outside their tent, and thunder rolls overhead, close enough that it rattles off the ground, shakes the peak of the roof like a hound worrying a rat. Harry suddenly feels cold, shivering in spite of the Heating Charm; he tucks his hands into the sleeves of his jumper and hunches closer to the jar of bluebell flames. It casts strange shadows on the table, long and thin, stretched out like spiders' legs or grasping fingers.

They eat tinned beans for supper, Hermione warming their plates with a spell Harry can only do properly about half the time, and his anger boils over again without warning, sparked by his uselessness, a hot and furious rush. He can hear Ron's mocking voice, see the hard cut of Ron's sneer. He _doesn't_ know what to do. Dumbledore must have been mental, thinking Harry could find all the horcruxes without any clues, that he could defeat Voldemort without any help.

"Harry," Hermione says, the word sharper than a hammerstroke, nailing straight through his thoughts, and Harry blinks up at her curious face, at the beans dripping on the table because his spoon is paused halfway to his mouth.

He drops it and stands, intent on storming away, but he ends up just turning a circle in the centre of the tent, unsure if he wants to hide in his bunk or stand outside in the rain. He needs to go somewhere, do something. Hermione's hand curling in his sleeve feels like a snake writhing up the back of his arm.

"It'll be all right," she says quietly, too quietly, her eyes hollow and her mouth a thin, white line. "We've just had a spot of rotten luck."

"Right." Harry shrugs coldly, chewing at his thumbnail. _We thought you knew what you were doing. We thought Dumbledore told you what to do._ "Just rotten luck. It's bound to get better any minute."

"Harry."

"I mean, it's not like it can get much worse."

His tone slaps her into silence; she stares at him for an excruciating moment, then slumps closer to him, her shoulders shaking, the final creak before the dam breaks. She cries into the curve of his neck, noisy and restless, so unlike the soft, whispery sobs that kept him awake last night and the night before, her fingers clenched in the loose folds of his jumper, her chin a dull point at the dip of his throat. He wraps his arms around her, letting his hand curl into the bristle of her hair, damp and tangled from the rain and from living in a tent; she smells like dirt and sweat and days spent sleeping rough, but beneath that she smells warm and familiar, smells like _Hermione_ , like old books and Muggle shampoo and the handmade gardenia soap Mrs Weasley gives her every birthday and Christmas. Harry breathes her in, swallowing past the lump in his throat, the taut and hopeless knot burning under his ribs. 

"Sorry," he mumbles, his other hand twitching at the small of her back. "I shouldn't have shouted."

"You were right, though." She laughs, but it sounds shrill and forced, feels as desperate as the red look on her face. "It really can't get much worse."

He brushes her hair away from her face and presses a quick kiss to her temple, just above her eyebrow. She shivers in his arms, making a small, soft noise against the hinge of his jaw, and he knows he shouldn't kiss her mouth, knows it with an ache in his chest that needles and hums like an accusation, a louder recrimination than the orange and angry blur of Ron's face, but it's just the two of them now, will probably only be the two of them until this whole thing ends, however it ends. Her lips are chapped and cold, and she pulls up short when he meets them, digging her knuckles into his side, hard, just below his ribs.

"Sorry," he says again, shame crawling across his cheeks like a rash. "I wasn't -- "

"Don't. Don't say it."

"Okay."

"I don't, um." Uncertainty slants across her face like a shadow. "Ron -- "

"I know."

Hermione leans into him, her fingers crooked into the collar of his jumper, and then her tongue is in his mouth, hot and slick as it pushes against his, and his hands slide to her waist, his fingers fluttering over the flare of her hips, nervous and unsure. They stumble across the tent, over toward the blankets beside his bunk, still heaped on the ground from when he woke this morning and stumbled straight to breakfast, and they land there in a messy tangle, all arms and legs and startled noises, Hermione hissing through her nose as Harry's knee bruises into the top of her thigh. His glasses snag in her hair, and the books piled behind her head topple over with a clatter. Guilt gnaws at him again, sharper than teeth biting into his skin, but she feels brilliant underneath him, her breasts pressed against his chest and her foot slipping down the length of his leg. 

Harry has no idea what he is doing, and Hermione's fingers jitter against the inside of his wrist, tremble as they curl at the back of his neck, hesitant in a way he has never known her to be, in a way that says she has no idea what she's doing either, but Harry figures that it doesn't matter, that they can learn it together, just as they have always learned everything, since Harry was eleven and Hermione was twelve. She pulls him closer when his prick rubs against her hip, knotting her hand in his hair and dragging slow, open kisses down the line of his jaw, and he holds his breath as he brushes his thumb over her nipple, as he dips his shaking hand between her legs, listening to the quiet noises she makes, the ragged rise and fall of her voice. She feels impossibly wet, first around his fingers, then around his prick, and he closes his eyes as he pushes inside her, the exhaustion and dread draining from his shoulders, warm for the first time in weeks.

They can't seem to find a rhythm, Hermione's hips moving too quickly, Harry's knee slipping and catching in the blankets; he splays his hand on the ground above her shoulder, looking for leverage, his fingers tripping over a blue and white knit cap -- Ron's cap. Shame skewers into Harry like a curse, a pain that sears up the line of his chest, twists into the hollow of his throat, but a dark and angry part of him shoves it away, the part still furious at Ron for leaving, for trying to make Hermione choose. He comes with his face buried in the curve of her neck, his lips and teeth working a reddish mark into her skin, fumbling his hand back between her legs when she makes a low, frustrated noise, rubbing and pressing until she arches and shudders against him, her breath fanning softly against his ear.

He falls asleep listening to the rain batter against the tent, Hermione's head on his shoulder and Hermione's hand tucked under his chin, and he wakes alone in a tangle of cold blankets, watching her start breakfast with her hair pulled over her shoulder, hiding the bruise he left just under her jaw.


End file.
